Your Basic Web Presence Requirements
…if you have a website / application and are not using these free tools then you are missing out on simple free tools that can drive Organic SEO, provide insights into user behavior and deliver an incredible experience for your prospects and customers.
You might not think SEO is a priority today, but it is, because spending 10 minutes now, will pay massive dividends when you are ready to retarget and really understand your audience.
TLDR: Here are the tools and pixels you need to install on your site to be able to build an audience, understand your funnels and drive conversions across organic, paid and placed media.
I don’t believe any of the following should be optional, they are the basic foundations, you can install via a single Google Tag Manager container vs inserting the code directly into your site. If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin like header/footer to add code to your website:
- Google Schema : This is not optional, is your website aligned to how Google & Bing like to read, understand and index your website.
- Google My Business : Incredibly powerful business search results listing (with exposure in Search & Maps). Consider adding your keywords to your company name (Dropbox – Online File Storage vs Dropbox Inc). Adding content to Google My Business drives listing value.
- Apple Business Register : Apple Maps business search and listings (with exposure to Search & Maps)
- PageSpeed Insights : Website performance reports on the user experience of your site for both mobile and desktop.
- Google Search Console: Measure your site’s search traffic, performance and ensure your sitemap is included in Google Search results. See the exact search terms your visitors used to find you via organic search.
- Core Web Vitals : Page performance based on real world usage data (field data).
- Google Analytics : (Some people prefer Matomo ) Web Analytics to understand, track and report. Ideally you will also set up conversion tracking so you can understand how many visitors turn into leads (and their source).
- The Pixels / Re-Marketing Tag: Meta , TikTok , LinkedIn , Google Ads , Ad Roll , Microsoft Ads – all the pixels to build and retarget your audience. Maybe not critical today, but perhaps in the future you want to run a LinkedIn Ad to all people who visited a certain page of your site? Some brands are leveraging Mntn (paid) in addition to standard ad-channels.
- FullStory (Free): Watch user behavior and understand the journey with heat maps, tracking, live viewing, frustration awareness for your website…. Actually watch your customers use your website / application and watch the points they get stuck or they bounce.
- LeadFeeder (Free): Reverse IP lookup to show you company visits to your website, narrow down by industry or target and push notifications into Slack.
- Drift (Free (Scroll Down!): Live chat, FAQ & Conversational Marketing to drive inbound sales, support and training funnels.
- UTM Builder : Not an install, make sure every link where you can is using UTM so you can start to track where traffic originates from. If you are doing cold outreach, you might make an edit on the UTM for each link in the email, so you know if it comes from the copy or the signature.
Am I missing any must have *free* tools here?